Women In Shorts under International Women's Day ProgrammeHealth. Peace. Happiness.2008/24 mins/Singapore/PGDirector: Cecillia Lee

Death is a subject that not many of us are comfortable with. Either we admit that we are afraid or some might just not talk about it. We will never appreciate what life has given us until we experience ourselves a mere near-death situation. But that aside, this documentary succeeded in scaring me to a point where I fidgeted in my seat throughout the screening.

Mdm Tan and Mdm Soon were suffering from a relapse of cancer and were spending their last dying days in a hospice, a place where they became friends just like the movie ‘The Bucket List’ but instead of having being discharged and doing a list of adventures, they spent their time singing and mostly talking. Despite having to deal with a similar illness, they were coping with different issues. Soon struggles to accept the turmoil of her illness and her impending death while Tan worries over her family and how they would cope with her passing.

The only part of the title of this documentary it touches on was health – indeed it has created an impact on what cancer can do to a person’s body (but even so the illness wasn’t mentioned in the documentary and I wonder if anyone didn’t read the synopsis in the flyer nobody would know what these two souls were suffering from). The documentary succeeded in conveying a sense of misery and despair. It was too desolated that I felt so bad for the characters especially when even their funerals were documented. Too much emphasis was on dead-man-walking and I was dying for something more inspirational and optimistic to cut back on the sadness. A little more happiness could make their passing more acceptable.